Former MI6 spy known to U.S. agencies is author of reports on Trump in Russia

Steele was known to US agencies through his work on behalf of Football Association (FA), England’s domestic soccer governing body in investigating FIFA. FA was planning to bid on the organization and the 2018  or 2022 World Cups. They hired Steele and his company Orbis to gather information that would give them a better understanding of what they were up against. BBC reports that he was hired by unidentified Republicans who wanted to stop Trump’s bid for the party’s nomination. -Vasilis Chronopoulos.

Christopher Steele, who wrote reports on compromising material Russian operatives allegedly had collected on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is a former officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, according to people familiar with his career.

Former British intelligence officials said Steele spent years under diplomatic cover working for the agency, also known as MI6, in Russia and Paris and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.

After he left the spy service, Steele supplied the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation with information on corruption at FIFA, international soccer’s governing body.

Read more from Reuters.

Image courtesy of Reuters (People pass the building housing the offices of Orbis Business Intelligence (C) where former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele works)